Lovelanguage: Baking

Chapter 5 - A Little Thank You

All of the hard times in my life have taught me, to take nothing for granted and be thankful for every smile, every nice word and every piece of help and kindness I receive. And in a weird twisted way, that has made me pretty happy, because thankfulness is such a nice feeling. I don't know if I have ever had more reason to be thankful. After I had parted ways with Nathan the day just went downhill so fast. I was sitting alone in the course on religious history, because the girl I had decided to sit next to, left after 5 minutes, judging by her hands massaging her forehead probably because of a migraine and then the whole train disaster, all because I was so deep in thought. To be fair I was thinking about Nathan at that moment, that he was really kind so far and that I think we could really be friends and how wonderful it would be to finally have a friend and wondering how many courses we are going to have together and who he might've sat next to, in his last course of the day. That I'd run into him by chance after walking around in panic for two hours, not being able to think straight and not finding my way home, was probably the luckiest I've ever been. And he was even so kind to let me into his house and use his toilet, eventhough he was apparently embarrassed by the state of it, or the state of himself, I think I noticed him change his clothes, but I think it's so impressive that he owns this house at such a young age. Or maybe it belongs to his parents, but there is not really a trace of them anywhere. Well, I know I was shy offering my cupcakes and cookies earlier, but now I don't even think they are enough to express my gratitude for saving me out of that situation. And as a little bonus I won't have to throw them away later, that would've been such a shame.

Julie got the baked goods out of her bag and ran over to him, but then she noticed that she didn't just want to overwhelm him by putting the boxes into his hands, so she looked to the side and through the half opened double door to her left she saw the Dining Room Table and put them down there.

"Is it okay if I put them here? I only got to offer you a little of my Cookies earlier, but I also brought Cupcakes for the first day, just in case and I know it's not enough to properly say thank you, but I hope they taste good and can bring a little smile to your face, so that me stumbling in here can at least be a little positive and not just an inconvenience or me interrupting your evening." Julie rambled, if she chose to speak at all while she was feeling nervous she always talked too much, too fast. She bit her lip, wishing to suck a few of the words she used back in, so he wouldn't immediately think of her as annoying.

But there was no need for her to worry, his eyes lit up and his face showed the cutest, happy smile possible. Julie suddenly felt so much warmer inside and for the first time in a long time she actually felt calm in the presence of another person. He didn't seem to judge her like other people.

"Oooh wow, they look so good! If they just taste half as good as the Cookies earlier... I don't know, but you don't need to thank me! I feel like I haven't really done much, apart from letting you randomly stumble across my house." Nathan chuckled a bit and it sounded delightful. He himself paused for a second, as if he hadn't heard that sound in a while.

"Oh yeah if you put it that way, it's just that the situation I was in beforehand was so awful, that seeing you again just turned my whole day around for the better! Kind of like you did this morning, when I was so anxious if people would tolerate me near them and you somehow made me feel calmer then too." For a second she was worried if this was too forward to say to someone you met the same day, but she started to worry less while talking to him and he didn't disappoint her.

"Wait you felt that way too? I would've never guessed! I mean you're... like... I don't understand why you'd think people wouldn't tolerate you?" Nathan looked at her, but she also caught him glancing at the Cupcakes. So Julie decided to just sit down on one of the Dining Room Chairs, so he'd be able to sit and eat while listening to her. And so he did. But when Julie was about to start talking he just ate one of the cupcakes, the whole thing and made a delighted noise. "Oh wow, how are these even better than the Cookies? I didn't think that was possible! Is it really okay if I eat some of them? It feels weird to just... eat a masterpiece"

Julie laughed "Of course! I'd just throw them away at home, so I'm just happy that you're appreciating them. Have as many as you want!" Nathan nodded eagerly and ate another one, while saying: "I'm sorry, I think I interrupted you earlier... when you wanted to answer why you get nervous around people... if you're comfortable talking about that of course." Julie took a deep breath before she answered:

"Well, the short answer is just bullying. It can really mess up your self esteem and a low self esteem makes you an easier target for bullying, which creates that hellish cycle I guess. The only reason my classmates were ever able to give me, was that I'm 'just weird', but I don't really understand what that means or what I'm supposed to do about it. Maybe the underlying problem is that I've got Autism, so I often feel like most people I meet communicate differently than I do. Like we're sending on different wavelengths. And so we don't really understand each other. But I'm currently trying to work on not searching for the root of the problem in myself and in something that I can't change about myself, but to realize that bullying is just a very weird and wrong behavior, but if you're suffering in a situation it's so much easier to want to change or hide yourself than to try and change the world, because that just makes me feel powerless you know?"

Nathan had been listening to her carefully while munching on the cupcakes and cookies. "I absolutely understand! At least your part of the story. But I think you're really nice to be around and I think you're communicating really clearly! I don't know what anyone's problem could be with you and I'm so sorry you had to go through that bullying shit too."

"Too?" Julie asked carefully. Nathan gestured towards himself "Don't pretend like you're surprised that I got bullied! Look at me! I'm disgusting!" She shook her head strongly from side to side "Don't say that! You're not disgusting at all! You're actually really delightful to be around too!" He looked at her, eyes wide open in shock. "How can you...? Do you really think so?" Julie nodded "Absolutely!"

His eyes filled with tears. Not knowing what to do, he started eating again, faster this time. Julie watched in awe, while the combination of the good taste and the emotions apparently made him loose any ability to hold himself back. His T-Shirt that already had been a little small before, was straining even more now, almost riding up his belly. She got this weird, but possibly good feeling and didn't really know why. Don't stare! She knows how uncomfortable it made her feel when people watched her eat, so she respectfully started looking around the dining room.

The wooden furniture looked like it's been painted blue more than 10 years ago, there were a bunch of spider webs, nice wooden floorboards and a thick blue curtain covering a window behind Nathan. Left of the window she was able to see something that looked like a framed family picture of 3 people. She recalled him saying "my house" earlier. Did his parents still live here? She was just about to ask, when Nathan gasped, horrified.

He jumped up from his chair, which made his T-Shirt ride up his belly a little more. Julie tried her best not to look at it. Nathan was staring down at the two plastic boxes she had brought, panicked. They were empty. "OH NO! OH SHIT! OH FUCK NO!" He screamed and ran out of the room.